3Q: The next Mars rover's destination

Jul 25, 2011 By Jennifer Chu

This artist concept features NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, a mobile robot for investigating Mars' past or present ability to sustain microbial life. Curiosity is being tested in preparation for launch in the fall of 2011. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

When the next-generation Mars rover, dubbed Curiosity, touches down on martian soil next summer, its cameras will likely capture a scene similar to what the first explorers of the Grand Canyon witnessed: towering layers of rock and sediment rising up from a dusty valley.

On Friday, NASA officials announced that Curiosity will land in a region named Gale Crater, a large depression with a massive, finely stratified mountain at its center. For two years, the rover will explore and sample sediments from the crater's valleys and cliffs, seeking signs of habitability.

Maria Zuber, the Earle A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and Planetary Science and head of MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, says Gale Crater may reveal clues about Mars' past. She spoke with MIT News about a future in which humans might explore the Red Planet.

Q. What makes Gale Crater an ideal landing site?

A. Gale is a large, ancient crater  about 154 kilometers [96 miles] in diameter  in the equatorial region of Mars that formed somewhere in the range of 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago. At the center of the crater is a five-kilometer-high [16,400-foot] mountain that contains hundreds of fine layers and grades in composition from the bottom up. Such a sequence of rocks, called a stratigraphic section, is a treasure trove of information for geologists. It preserves a temporal record, in which you're essentially looking back in time as you progress down the column.

Gale's mountain is the remnant of sediments that once filled the crater and were subsequently eroded. At the base of this mountain are clays, which form in water-rich conditions at elevated temperatures possibly associated with impact or hydrothermal conditions. The geologic context of the clay minerals will hopefully allow the origin to be distinguished. Further up the column the mineralogy transitions to reveal sulfate-rich rocks. The crystallization of sulfates also requires a substantial quantity of water, and some sulfates recognized on Mars require acidic conditions to form. This sequence implies a change in the aqueous chemistry of early Mars, conceivably indicating a significant change in environmental conditions.

The Curiosity rover will be able to ascend at least the lower layers of the central mountain, systematically studying the chemistry and geology and providing information that scientists will use to reconstruct just how the environment changed.

Q. What would this area have looked like during an age when there might have been water, and possibly life, on the planet?

A. Gale has had a complex history but it seems certain that water played a role in shaping the crater. There may have been a large amount of water on the floor, and water may have played a role in depositing the sediments that compose the central mountain. Several channels, likely carved by flowing water, cut the mountain, underscoring that water was present in multiple episodes of the crater's history.

Q. One of the goals of the Curiosity mission is to "prepare for human exploration." What does this mean, and how will the rover tackle this objective?

A. This mission will demonstrate the ability to deliver a large and heavy spacecraft to the surface of Mars. That's a step that needs to be taken if you want to eventually send a human there: When humans go to Mars, the landed mass will be significant. The Curiosity lander is about as heavy as a small car and more than 300 kilograms heavier than the Mars exploration rovers; to deliver such a massive robotic explorer to the surface of Mars is real progress.

The precision landing system to set the rover on the martian surface, called "Sky Crane," is genuinely new, and increases the flexibility in selecting landing sites. When we used to evaluate landing sites on Mars, the engineers would always want to land at low elevation, with a lot of atmosphere above it  for parachuting in  and somewhere flat with no large rocks that would cause the rover to tip over or limit mobility. And the scientists would always want to go to the rocky, hazardous, mountainous places because those are the most interesting geologically. Because this landing system is so robust, Curiosity can land in many places on Mars that would not have been possible in the past. The fact that a site may be rocky, or have a mountain or cliff nearby, need no longer necessarily be a showstopper.

This guided entry and the ability to do precision landing is extremely helpful for future human exploration, because humans will want to land in the best, safest place on Mars.

This story is republished courtesy of MIT News (web.mit.edu/newsoffice/), a popular site that covers news about MIT research, innovation and teaching.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Near the center of a Martian crater about the size of Connecticut, hundreds of exposed rock layers form a mound as tall as the Rockies and reveal a record of major environmental changes on ...

NASA's new Mars probe, a $2.5 billion, nuclear-powered rover the size of a small car, is at the Florida launch site being prepared for its nine-month journey to the red planet, with one key issue still unresolved ...

A 150-kilometer-wide hollow on Mars named Gale Crater has emerged as the front-runner for the potential landing site for the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, which will head to Mars this fall. Nature ...

Several days after Rosetta's close flyby of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 14 February 2015, images taken on this day by OSIRIS, the scientific imaging system on board, have now been downlinked to Earth. ...

Like coins, most comet have both heads and tails. Occasionally, during a close passage of the Sun, a comet's head will be greatly diminished yet still retain a classic cometary outline. Rarely are we left ...

This week marked the completion of an important step on the path to spacecraft assembly, test, and launch operations for the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer ...

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has returned new images captured on approach to its historic orbit insertion at the dwarf planet Ceres. Dawn will be the first mission to successfully visit a dwarf planet when it enters ...

According to the MSL website, Curiosity will indeed be able to acquire movies at the rate of ~10 fps at 720p quality(1280x720 pixels). Full science frames (1600x1200pixels) can be acquired at ~5 fps: http://msl-scicor...Mastcam/

So if if anything flitters by the cameras, these imagers should see it. ;)

"What would this area have looked like during an age when there might have been water, and possibly life, on the planet?"-ummmmmmmm, it would have had water and possibly signs of life? What kind of question is that. Like asking "what would this area have looked like if it had an amusement park".

I don't get it, the central peak of an impact crater consists of the ejected material that fell straight back down after the impact. The deposition should be completely scrambled out of the original sequence. So why is it referred to as a "finely stratified mountain"?

I don't get it, the central peak of an impact crater consists of the ejected material that fell straight back down after the impact. The deposition should be completely scrambled out of the original sequence. So why is it referred to as a "finely stratified mountain"?

The point is that over the original central peak of the crater there is a stratified sequence of sediments that were placed there after the formation of the crater.

I really ask myself why they send a billion $ robot to a place which looks like a place we already know on Earth. Also the impact which created the crater most possibly wiped out all interesting stuff. Exploration is about finding new things. Lets hope theres something else which will be worth the $

...the central peak of an impact crater consists of the ejected material that fell straight back down after the impact. The deposition should be completely scrambled out of the original sequence. So why is it referred to as a "finely stratified mountain"?

Both your statements are wrong.

The central peak is formed when the disrupted/molten material of the freshly excavated crater floor slumps back towards the centre of the crater. As the roughly symmetrical inflow of material meets at the centre it is forced upwards to form the central peak.

Lunar craters with a central peak (termed complex craters) are only found where the diameter of the crater is greater than 15km - this will differ for Mars due to crustal composition and the larger gravitational attraction of the planet.

I would assume that the stratifications referred to are the result of later sedimentation onto the central peak when the crater was flooded with water and these will also record the drop in water levels.

Please sign in to add a comment.
Registration is free, and takes less than a minute.
Read more

Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.

Javascript is currently disabled in your web browser. For full site functionality, it is necessary to enable Javascript.
In order to enable it, please see these instructions.